| Dear Readers
You won’t believe this, but I have
discovered a new kind of whippoorwill.
Every morning about 3:00 the bird
flies to our windowsill, perches, and commences a loud and
unending repetition of his call. He kept on waking Susan and
me up, but there was something strange about his call. You know,
when you’re half-asleep-half awake, you don’t perceive sounds
precisely at first.
A couple of nights ago the bird
cranked up as usual, and I started listening. We have both
chuck-will’s-widows and whippoorwills, and they sound
alike. I wanted to determine which bird it was before I got my
shotgun. To my surprise, it dawned on me that this was
neither species, but a new one altogether. Over and over he
was crying,
"krugerrands-krugerrands-krugerrands-krugerrands-krugerrands-krugerrands."
DEALING WITH DISCOURAGEMENT
The week after Memorial Day was, I
believe, the most discouraging I’ve had since we moved to the
country.
It really shouldn’t have been. We had
just come back from Monroe, where I spoke at the 11th
Annual Southern Heritage Conference. We had a great time, and my two
speeches were well received. But when we got home, the rain that had
already soaked us through May cranked up again. We missed putting
out a garden early in the month, when for a short time it was dry
enough, and now we’re lagging – although Liberty and Ellen have
gotten out quite a few plants, in spite of the mud. Seeing Lib’s mud
caked boots on the back porch testifies unequivocally to her epochal
character change. She used to be allergic to the word
"garden."
Monday it rained buckets, enough to
make you think – uneasily – of Noah and the Flood. It has rained so
long that even my soul is damp and dripping. Worse, the only
raincoat I have is a lined oilcloth job suitable for outdoor work in
Antarctica, so my soul was also sweating -- profusely, as
they say. The ongoing rain foreclosed our cutting hay. The bright
side was that perhaps, just perhaps, the rain would fill out the
skinny hay crop.
That morning early we discovered that
our silky white Highland cow Bonnie – Queen of Cows – had
delivered her calf, and it was a heifer. Somebody named her "Bonnie
Blue." The next afternoon our last pregnant sow – unnamed, because
you don’t get attached to pigs as you do to cows, nor do you desire
their intimacy – farrowed, a disappointing five piglets.
The rain continued.
Wednesday morning I went out to feed
the pigs and found that the sow had killed one by lying down on it.
It would have probably killed me if she’d lain down on me.
Just before that I discovered that an unnamed Sanders child
brought a big can of eggs cleaned out of the incubator, supposed to
be eggs too long incubated without hatching. When the pigs began to
eat them, however, I noticed a live duckling in one. Obviously, the
Unnamed had not properly checked the dates written on the
eggs.
On Wednesday for no good reason the
well pump at Justin’s house expired. This entails (1) finding
somebody to fix it, and (2) a long trip to Florence, Alabama to buy
a new pump.
On Thursday Susan and Lib left early
(i.e., only an hour later than they intended) to buy the
pump. But Lowe’s in Florence was out of stock, so they had to drive
to Muscle Shoals to get the pump. (Beginning to get the picture?)
That was the morning all my kids, sua sponte and on their own
authority, decided to sleep in, so when time came to feed animals
and milk, nobody appeared but Johnny Ray Bain and I.
Now replacing a well pump is a huge
job. To pull the pump, you also have to pull the pipe that reaches
to the bottom of the well. However, how do you get out 150 feet of
pipe when the roof of the well house is six feet above the well
mouth? You take off the roof. Whoops -- don’t forget the
rain. Wednesday the sun began to shine, but Wednesday night the
storms cranked up again. Thank heaven, Susan had remembered to put a
tarp over the well house. I hadn’t.
By Thursday evening the pump had been
replaced and the workman left. The well ran for about three minutes
before it threw the breaker. I went home to the Shoe.
Friday morning dawned wet and crisp –
dripping in fact. The truck was out of gas. The four-wheeler, which
pulls the trailer for feeding the animals every morning, was out of
gas. The 1,000 gallon gas tank, we had discovered the day before,
was out of gas. Either somebody had been driving back into the
pasture stealing it or my children had been filling out of it
without telling anybody. Hot ziggety, we’ll get to buy the
refill gas not at $1.20 a gallon, but at $1.60.
I located a gas can brimming with
almost two quarts of gas. Enough for the four wheeler and enough to
get Susan, with crippled back, down to Country Bob’s Store where she
could buy enough gas to get on to her chiropractor.
But first, before I can feed the
animals, I have to drive out to the Ponderosa, Lib & Johnny’s
trailer, to get water, because remember there is no water at the
Top, Justin’s house. Later, when I finally drew near Pig Hollow, I
remembered that Susan had told me to check on the second duck
setting on a clutch of eggs.
Lame Duck was already setting on eight
eggs. Lame Duck is a Rouen duck we got last summer. She turned up
with a broken leg and we thought she’d die or something would get
her (slower speed, readier prey) but not only did she survive, she
became the leaderess of our other three surviving ducks. Lame Duck
had been setting for about two weeks. Her nest was in one of the pig
pens under the trees, the pens we had used for Princess and Houie
before we fenced off Pig Hollow. The second duck had a nest next to
the fence outside the pens.
Lame Duck was gone. There was
something yellow on the bottom of the next, and only one egg
remained. Second duck’s nest was empty, but had seven eggs left.
Ne’er a duck was in sight, so I reasoned, "Varmint enters pen.
varmint eats Lame Duck. Varmint eats eggs. Varmint leaves. On his
way out, varmint eats Second Duck."
It started to drizzle again lightly,
just enough to dampen what was left of my spirits. The pigs were
clotted around the gate, waiting to wipe pig snot on my jeans --
their morning duty. They were grumpy and picking at each other. I
poured the bucket with their food into another, to make sure it was
thoroughly mixed, and spilled about a quart. Once I had the big pigs
fed I went over to the pens where we keep the two sows with piglets.
First thing that met my eye was that dead piglet I still had to pull
out of the pen and bury, but then I turned and spied the four
ducks, playing in a mud puddle. I know it wasn’t much, but
the sight of those four ducks, alive, was at least something
to feed my hope.
Ahhh, humanity! Is thy spirit
so weak, so fragile, that even a duck (and a lame one at
that) can cheer thy soul? How low canst thou sink?
THINGS GOT WORSE
I was pondering all these things when
the sun finally came out on Wednesday. I got an e-mail from a friend
that contained this line from a turn of the century Kansas farmer,
"I know farming is hard, ruthlessly hard, but what you might call
hard, God called good when He made it. I have to stay
a farmer."
Now that cheered me up a good bit,
until things started falling apart again. After shifting it once
already, I had my telephone interview with Walker Todd scheduled for
10:30 on June 6. The day before, one of our horse-drawn mowers had
thrown bolts essential to its operation. The other was already
hors de combat. Mandatory trip to town, gigantic
time-eater.
Wednesday promised to be a late day to
begin with, thanks to the trip to town, but my boys were also late
getting out of bed, somebody having fed them a powerful sleeping
potion. I dodged the aggravation by leaving them. Driving
from the Shoe to the Top, I feel giddy and wildly free, having no
one to nag. Arrive at the Top at 7:40, no Justin outside getting
ready to leave for town. Find Justin and Wright inside, one of them
actually awake.
Skip the rest. About 8:35 Zachariah
comes into the office to inform us Molly the Milch Cow is acting
strange and can hardly keep her feet.
Molly has bloat.
Bad bloat.
Molly will die, quickly, if we can’t
do something.
Molly walks as far as the barn and
then goes down (i.e., lies on her side), preparatory to
expiring.
Run to the office.
I call the large animal vet where we
had taken her the day before for scours and mastitis. The lady there
tells me to get a six foot piece of garden hose and run it down her
throat to relieve the gas in her stomach.
Run back to the barn.
We – Franklin, Susan, Christian, and
Zachariah -- convince Molly to sit up. Molly weighs 6-700
pounds.
I begin my unsuccessful attempt at
intubation. Garden hose collapses. I run out of barn across the road
searching through the grass for stiffer hose to cut a piece out of.
I find, cut, and run back to barn.
Susan must leave, vowing she cannot
stand there and watch the cow die. I look at Molly’s big suffering
frog eyes, and sharply repent our earlier differences of
opinion.
Christian (not I) manages to get
garden hose down Molly's throat, and it does let off some
gas.
Our regular vet, Dr. Bell, whom Susan
had called, finally arrives. If he had been General Patton riding a
Sherman tank at the head of the Third Army and I had been the leader
of the French Resistance, I couldn’t have been gladder. I resist
hugging him and kissing both cheeks. Dr. Bell is too grave for such
outbursts.
Dr. Bell has a 12 foot tube.
No wonder our 6 foot model wouldn't
work.
We spend another hour helping Dr. Bell
work over Molly. Drain out stomach (he’s puffing and blowing and
sucking on the tube). We run dishwashing detergent down her, just in
case it’s frothy bloat from eating too much clover. The
detergent breaks up the tiny bubbles. Administer massive doses of
calcium IV and per os, in case she has milk fever, a
condition induced by calcium deficiency.
Molly releases large quantities of
gas, exceeding yearly US limits for CO2 emission under
the Kyoto Accords.
Finally, Molly regains her feet. I
felt like Shirley Temple’s daddy in one of those cheesy Grade B
movies from the ‘30s, where Walter Brennan dies and everybody
watching it cries, whether you want to or not.
It is now 11:30, and I have
definitively and irredeemably stood up Walker Todd, waiting in
Cincinnati.
"But God called it good when he made
it," I recall.
I believe.
O LORD, help my
unbelief!
Help it when the dogs eat Susan's last
chick.
Help it when the pig only has 5
piglets.
Help it when one of the piglets
dies.
Help it when the cow bloats.
Help it when it rains for two weeks
and the hay can’t be cut.
Help it when the army worms eat the
grass before it can become hay.
Help it every morning, and every
evening, and every moment, because that's how much I need it.
O LORD, help my
unbelief!
THE SWINISH SEQUEL
That was the same day I quit waiting
for those piglets to die on their own. Consulting with Dr. Bell, I
concluded that the sow had suffered a postpartum uterine infection
that had also given her mastitis. Mastitis equals no milk, a death
sentence for piglets that are little more than appetites with legs
and a snout.
We took them away from the sow. Where
to put them? My office, naturally -- it doubles as a veterinary
surgery, animal obstetrics clinic, and compost heap. Susan sets to
work bottle-feeding piglets. She quickly discerns that one of the
pigs had a lot longer row to hoe back to health. Susan separates
that one out.
These piglets had been so rain soaked
and malnourished that two of them have rotting tails. Not a single
one is an accomplished bottle feeder. Nonetheless Susan perseveres.
Friends loan her a heat lamp and she buys a milk substitute. She
adds Citricidal for whatever infections they might have. If it works
for us, maybe it’ll work for piglets, too.
By Sunday it becomes apparent that the
sickest piglet would not make it. To me falls the lot of disposing
it. Now before you say, "Well, there’s nothing to that," let me ask
you why you wouldn’t volunteer for that job. After all,
what’s one piglet more or less? The world is full of them.
Pig or human, I’ll tell you why nobody
volunteers. It’s because it admits that Death has won, and Death is
our enemy, the hateful enemy with whom we can never make
peace.
In the last three days the three
remaining pigs have begun to thrive. Susan always puts on her yellow
rain pants to feed them. She put the piglets in a little enclosure
in the yard, and hung the pants over the fence. The little piglets
all curl up to sleep right next to those yellow pants. Apparently,
they think they’re Mama.
A TRIP TO THE BUTCHER
Last Monday dawned the appointed day
for three more hogs to visit the butcher. You remember Peripatetic
Pig from last month, the escapee that cost us so much trouble to
recapture? Recapture him we did, but the very morning he was
destined to Make the Big Trip, he broke out. That pig knows
something.
We had borrowed a stock trailer and
parked it in Pig Hollow. I threw a couple handfuls of corn into the
trailer every day, to accustom the pigs to the trailer. I knew it
would work. I told y’all, pigs have a welfare mentality.
Came Monday morning, I threw corn into
that trailer and those pigs rushed in. That trailer started shaking
and rumbling and squealing like there was a bar fight nside. Our
problem was to get pigs out, not in.
When Susan pulled away, the trailer
held Red Pig, Pink Pig, and our original boar (now not a boar)
Houdini. I know it sounds silly and sentimental, but I hated to see
them go. Pig Hollow looked empty without them. After all, what’s one
pig more or less?
On the other hand, Houdini did weigh
475 pounds, and will become famous whole hog sausage.
Every creature, I suppose, must
fulfill his own destiny.
Best wishes,
Franklin Sanders
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